Agreed, today's players would easily pull 30% dps more out of the 1-2 button rotations from back then and use their personal/raid CDs more often.

The only reason players from BC look less skilled on video is because their characters have less skills that are used frequently, less mobility making them look 'slow', less glowing stuff.

I don't think you got my point across correctly. I'm not talking about the skill level of the players (although the more you play the better you get, but that's irrelevant here) - I'm talking about what they can do. Most classes had no defensive cooldowns, there were few CC breaks, kiting a large amount of mobs certainly wasn't as easy as it is now, tanks were susceptible to crushing blows, tanks in general functioned completely differently. Healing was completely different, no such thing as smart heals, barely any AoE heals barring chain heal and PoH/PoM. Raid cooldowns? Wtf is a raid cooldown?

Let alone things like theorycrafting which was way less extreme. \

All these things have allowed for the higher echelon of players to develop a lot of ways to deal with possible encounter mechanics, which in turn allowed the devs to develop more and more complex/difficult encounters, and so on.

My point isn't that the top players were bad - no, they were as good as they could be. But that wasn't very good since the limits weren't exactly hard to reach.

I don't think you got my point across correctly. I'm not talking about the skill level of the players (although the more you play the better you get, but that's irrelevant here) - I'm talking about what they can do.

My point isn't that the top players were bad - no, they were as good as they could be. But that wasn't very good since the limits weren't exactly hard to reach

Legendary cloak is harder and takes more skill to get than atiesh in classic.

Legendary cloak takes like 4 months of errands but any idiot can just kill bosses in naxx40 and usually finish his staff in less than 4 months.

On a per player skill base that might be true but Atiesh was more an guild achievement than a personal one like today.
Clearing whole naxx40 alone was an achievement and relative rare back then. Atiesh was like an reward for all the work done by the guild for defeating every encounter.
The amount of time and work required to clear naxx was pretty hight. It was still hard for some people when they did pugs at level 70.

The game was overall harder in TBC, but the boss mechanics are "harder" in MoP, it's harder because there are more and new mechanics in MoP.
But in TBC you had to work to get an epic, you had to work a lot harder to afford flying skill, and there was no catchup system like you have now (lootisle...)
You have to put in a lot more work to keep your alts decently geared. Create an heroic group to do dungeons could take a few hours if your friends weren't online.

It's easier in the sense that you don't have to spend days running back and forth across the world on a +60% mount in order to do ridiculous attunement quest chains to access the content.

It's harder in the sense that end game content is now more reflex based. So the game requires less "dedication" and more skill.

Most of the rose coloured glasses uproar comes from people who were very "dedicated" but aren't as good at the more modern reflex based mechanics. Gone are the days of "I get to stand in 1 spot dotting things because I'm the warlock and I get all the epics because I'm online 12 hours a day and I know one of the officers IRL"

Now nobody is special. Everybody gets a chance. (This angers some people).

Ah yes. "Sure, 90% of the game is dead easy, but look at this little corner reserved for people who enjoy a challenge, its still there!"
The fact that you call most of the game "pre-raid gearing" is depressing enough as it is.

If you are a raider, and consider raiding to be the focus of the game and the main reason why you play WoW, then yes, the rest is cosmetics.
That being said, at no point has "pre-raid gearing" been as much of a term and actual state of the game as in TBC, when it was a much more significant time investment to get crafted, heroic etc gear to even be able to start raids.

Nowadays you still have all that, but simplified and more fun, I would argue. I always find it hilarious when people complain about the "rep-gating" when you compare it to past expansions and especially TBC's inane key-gating, for example.

And you are utterly deluding yourself if you think the game was harder outside of dungeons/raid in TBC. There were still group quests, but the rest of the content was just as easy as it is now, rares were a joke compared to now.

You are further deluding yourself if you believe "90%" of the game now is dead easy. All heroic raid tiers and Challenge Mode dungeons are a HUGE time investment, if you dedicate yourself to them you will spend a majority of your time with this content and it is far harder than anything you could have ever faced in TBC. The fact that you choose not to and complain about the lack of challenge is your issue, not the game's.

Or you're just another youtube raider that doesn't even play anymore but ofc knows better than all the currently playing/raiding folks ^^

Gearing is way easier.
Speccing is a joke. Rotations are simplified and streamlined.
Tactics are public available.
Bossencounters are spoiled before released.
Addons tell you when to press nukes and when to move out of fire.
It is really hard to find anything that would make the game harder these days.

Gearing is way easier.
Speccing is a joke. Rotations are simplified and streamlined.
Tactics are public available.
Bossencounters are spoiled before released.
Addons tell you when to press nukes and when to move out of fire.
It is really hard to find anything that would make the game harder these days.

How about the fights and mechanics itself?

I do have to disagree on some points though.
-How was gearing hard? Every guide told you what the BiS-gear was.
-Same goes for speccing, it's "harder" now because I actually have to think instead of copy-paste 'the best' spec.
-Could I ask you what rotation you are talking about? It always seems that people never play my classes, because they all became harder.
-Tactics were always known, we were forced to watch the videos.
-They always told us when to run and DBM always announced special phases.

I'm not sure about what guides are you talking about. In the BC I only knew maxdps and discussions on elitistjerks. While elitistjerks was a valuable source of information (but I would call it nothing like a plain 'guide'), maxdps was shit for at least a few classes/specs (it had wrong values). In fact it was some sort of a joke to say "that guy is clueless and just goes with whatever he reads on maxdps".
I'm not trying to say that the game was difficult for the supposed lack of 'gearing guides', but I'm curious to know what 'guides' are you talking about.

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Originally Posted by Priceless

In TBC I played hunter and for quite a while I just spammed a 1 button macro as Beast Master and topped the dps meters.

A lot of hunters were like that. That's why you could clearly tell a good player from a crappy one when you asked them to kite something.
Like trapping two mobs and kiting a third.
Enjoy your memories of 'topping the DPS meters'.

I'm not sure about what guides are you talking about. In the BC I only knew maxdps and discussions on elitistjerks. While elitistjerks was a valuable source of information (but I would call it nothing like a plain 'guide'), maxdps was shit for at least a few classes/specs (it had wrong values). In fact it was some sort of a joke to say "that guy is clueless and just goes with whatever he reads on maxdps".
I'm not trying to say that the game was difficult for the supposed lack of 'gearing guides', but I'm curious to know what 'guides' are you talking about.

There were even on this site
I used to read them all the time in my lurking-period on MMO-C.

There were even on this site
I used to read them all the time in my lurking-period on MMO-C.

Are you very very sure about that? If memory serves me well, mmo-champion started to gain popularity towards the middle of the Burning Crusade. If I try to make a quick search on the forum, I can't find forum topics earlier than around April 2007. Unless more detailedly argumented, I'll have to doubt presence and especially extent / quality of those class guides on mmo-champion during the BC.

I don't know if some changes in the database vanished or misplaced any possibly previous class forum, but earliest posts on class forums do not seem to date any earlier than July 2008, which is three months and half before WotLK.

Yep. And you get it at level 90 when you cant even find someone on trade who isin't so dumb they don't even know whats going on in a 3dps H Scenario (I think i've made this comparison like 5 times today)

There have been "dumb" people on /2 since Vanilla. This isn't new to MOP. People aren't running many H senarios on my server. There is difference between inexperience and stupidity.

Originally Posted by Daffan

I wouldn't even say "HARD" You go through LFR babby mode, then Flex which is easier/harder depending on your social skills (better groups and friends to carry)

You leave out normal and hard modes, which many people don't even try, because they are too difficult. Blizzard has given us more raid options than we had in TBC. This doesn't mean hard raids don't exist.

Originally Posted by Daffan

And 85-90 is -1/10 because you can 1 button heal or tank the LFG system.

That's simply isn't true. While many dungeons are AOE fests, the newer dungeons wipe leveling groups with players who aren't the right spec, aren't wearing gear or aren't using abilities.

I've also wiped many times, because I'm grouped with players who believe "Wow is easy mode." These are the same players who claim LFR is "babby mode," call players in trade chat "stupid" and make outrageous claims like, "you can 1 button heal or tank the LFG system..." These players never take responsibility for groups failing: it's always someone else's fault. These players are quick to call other people names and bash Blizzard for giving players access to content.

Most of the rose coloured glasses uproar comes from people who were very "dedicated" but aren't as good at the more modern reflex based mechanics. Gone are the days of "I get to stand in 1 spot dotting things because I'm the warlock and I get all the epics because I'm online 12 hours a day and I know one of the officers IRL"
Now nobody is special. Everybody gets a chance. (This angers some people).

Its hard for me to approach this post without sounding like an elitist, but I am curious which bosses you'd killed in TBC that allowed standing and nuking, vs the ones that required movement.

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Originally Posted by miffy23

And you are utterly deluding yourself if you think the game was harder outside of dungeons/raid in TBC. There were still group quests, but the rest of the content was just as easy as it is now, rares were a joke compared to now.

I find it ironic that you disagree with my claim that 90% of the game outside raiding is dead easy, then spend 90% of your post talking about raiding
Anyway I can't speak for Pandaland as I've yet to visit, but old Azeroth is a shadow of its former difficulty. In the past you could actually die if you pulled an elite or 3-4 normal mobs and didn't have an escape method ready. And the dungeons actually took longer than 5 minutes, where people actually communicated a little bit as well. And its not an elitism thing. A game which requires no effort and no communication is not a good way to hook new players into the community.

Its hard for me to approach this post without sounding like an elitist, but I am curious which bosses you'd killed in TBC that allowed standing and nuking, vs the ones that required movement.

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I find it ironic that you disagree with my claim that 90% of the game outside raiding is dead easy, then spend 90% of your post talking about raiding Anyway I can't speak for Pandaland as I've yet to visit, but old Azeroth is a shadow of its former difficulty. In the past you could actually die if you pulled an elite or 3-4 normal mobs and didn't have an escape method ready. And the dungeons actually took longer than 5 minutes, where people actually communicated a little bit as well. And its not an elitism thing. A game which requires no effort and no communication is not a good way to hook new players into the community.

Oh look, how surprising, ANOTHER person not actually playing but spewing acid all over the game. Please, spare us. These threads are just full of guys like you.
Oh and I made a valid point. If you consider a good point to be "talk a lot about it" then you can't reason.

I have a list of things I consider to be mandatory before anyone can say "teh garmez tis teh eezee" (or the game is easier now). Complete the following things to gain the right to be heard:
-Beat all brawlers guild bosses (bonus for the extra bosses).
-Reach 50th wave of higher on prooving grouds.
-Beat all heroic scenarios with bonus objectives
-Obtain gold medals on all challenge mode dungeos.
-Obtain a raiding cutting edge achievement (aka beat heroic mode while is relevant).

Thats the PvE to-do list if you want to say : WoW is easy. Until then, please stop posting about the subject.

I have a list of things I consider to be mandatory before anyone can say "teh garmez tis teh eezee" (or the game is easier now). Complete the following things to gain the right to be heard:
-Beat all brawlers guild bosses (bonus for the extra bosses).
-Reach 50th wave of higher on prooving grouds.
-Beat all heroic scenarios with bonus objectives
-Obtain gold medals on all challenge mode dungeos.
-Obtain a raiding cutting edge achievement (aka beat heroic mode while is relevant).

Thats the PvE to-do list if you want to say : WoW is easy. Until then, please stop posting about the subject.

This. Know what you're talking about, or GTFO. It's getting really annoying debating the differences in difficulty with people that act all defensive and whiny, and 3 posts later the truth comes out, that they don't actually have a clue about today's status because they're not playing, or haven't played in ages.